By Anthony Panciocco
BANGOR – University of Maine sophomore forward Liz Wood scored the 500th point of her young career Tuesday night, leading the women’s basketball team to a 92-62 blowout of the University of Vermont Catamounts at the Cross Insurance Center.
The victory was the third straight conference win for UMaine, marking their first three-game winning streak since the 2004-2005 season. All three games were won by 12 or more points.
The Black Bears improve their record to 9-8 overall and 3-1 in America East, while the Catamounts fall to 4-12 and 1-2, respectively.
Wood led UMaine with 22 points on the night to go along with six rebounds. Senior guard Ashleigh Roberts added 16 points, five boards and four assists.
The Black Bears wasted no time early on, getting out to an early 9-0 lead led by four points from Roberts and three from Wood, who made the first six shots she took. They continued their pressure after a Vermont timeout, bringing their lead to 15-5 just 4:17 into the game.
“Our coach has been talking about coming out and being the aggressor,” Wood said. “We have had a bad habit of coming out and kind of feeling our way into the game, but today I think we did a good job of coming out early and establishing ourselves.”
The Catamounts rallied back to cut the lead to six, but the Black Bears were able to keep them at arm’s length until the end of the half. Freshman guard Kylie Butler led the Catamounts on a 9-3 run to bring the score to 35-28, but it would not last long. The Black Bears went on a 13-7 run of their own, amassing a commanding 48-35 lead going into halftime.
Vermont, the best offensive rebounding team in the America East Conference, led 25-17 in rebounding through the first half.
Vermont freshman guard Jordan Eisler scored four of the Catamounts’ first six points to get her team off to a fast start in the second, but was matched shot for shot by the Black Bears. Though they were able to get things going early in the half, the Catamounts could not gain any ground on the Black Bears and failed to cut the lead to less than 10.
UMaine sophomore sharpshooter Chantel Charles, freshman Sigi Koizar and sophomore center Anna Heise all pitched in to extend the second-half lead. Down the stretch, redshirt senior Cherrish Wallace dazzled with several backdoor passes on fast breaks that led to easy layups. She finished the night with a double-double consisting of 13 points and 10 assists.
“By now my style is running – I like to run a little bit so now that those guys have been playing with me they see me running and they’re doing the same thing. It’s a good feeling when I can see them cutting to the basket,” Wallace said.
The game marked just the fourth of Wallace’s career at UMaine. She graduated from Baylor University in 2012, where a serious leg injury limited her to just one season of play. She was cleared to play over winter break and has wasted no time making an impact, averaging 10 points per game.
“Basketball-wise it has been a different kind of mindset getting back into things, but these girls have been great helping me get used to everything here,” said the transfer. “I’ve been playing with them and I’ve been here since September so I’ve had to get adjusted fast, but they have done a good job of helping me and taking me in.”
The Black Bears had a huge second half on the glass led by Wood and Roberts, finishing the game with 36 boards to Vermont’s 37 after trailing 25-17 at the half.
“We did not feel like we were giving the rebounding effort we needed to, and we really challenged the post players at halftime and I felt they really did [respond],” UMaine head coach Richard Barron said. “Mikaela [Gustafsson] and Anna [Heise] did a much better job.”
Vermont struggled shooting the ball, hitting on just 39.1 percent of their shots from the field to the Black Bears’ efficient 53.6 percent clip.
UMaine will take to the road this weekend for a big game against the first-place University at Albany Great Danes Saturday afternoon, while the Catamounts return home to take on the University of Maryland-Baltimore County the same day.